Captivity narratives are stories of people captured by "uncivilized" enemies. The narratives often include a theme of redemption by faith in the face of the threats and temptations of an alien way of life. Barbary captivity narratives, stories of Englishmen captured by Barbary pirates, were popular in England in the 16th and 17th centuries. They became popular in North America in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Ann Eliza Bleecker's epistolary novel, The History of Maria Kittle, first published in 1793, is considered the first known Captivity novel and set the form for subsequent Indian Capture novels.^[1]

The first American Barbary captivity narrative was by Abraham Browne (1655), but the most popular was that of Captain James Riley, entitled An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the Brig Commerce (1817).

American Indian captivity narratives, stories of men and, particularly, women of European descent who were captured by Native Americans, were popular in both America and Europe from the 17th century until the close of the American frontier late in the 19th century. Mary Rowlandson's memoir A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is a classic example of the genre. American captivity narratives were often based on true events, but they frequently contained fictional elements as well, and some were entirely fictional, created because the stories were popular. One spurious captivity narrative was The Remarkable Adventures of Jackson Johonnet, of Massachusetts (Boston, 1793).

Many of these narratives were produced by Puritans, with negative images of the 'Indian' to show that the captivity was a warning from God concerning the state of the Puritans' souls, and that God was their only hope for redemption. As a result, historians treat captivity narratives with caution, and many of them are regarded more as folklore or ideology than history; nevertheless, historians such as Linda Colley and anthropologists such as Pauline Turner Strong have found them useful in analyzing how colonists constructed a Native American "other."

Frederick Turner, in his book Beyond Geography, describes some captivity narratives in which the white captive comes to prefer and eventually adopts a Native American way of life. Such stories have ended with the white captives forced kicking and screaming to return to their settlements (to face certain, painful debriefing and reconversion rituals) during prisoner exchanges.

[edit] Original captivity narratives

• Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núñez (1542), La Relacion (The Report); Translated as The Narrative of Cabeza De Vaca by Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz.
• Fontaneda, Hernando de Escalante (1575) Memoir On the Country and Ancient Indian Tribes Of Florida
• Rowlandson, Mary (1682), The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
• Mather, Cotton (1696-97), The Captivity of Hannah Dustan
• Dickinson, Jonathan (1697), God's Protecting Providence Man's Surest Help and Defence in the times of the greatest difficulty and most Imminent danger Evidenced in the Remarkable Deliverance of divers Persons, from the devouring Waves of the Sea, amongst which they Suffered Shipwrack. And also from the more cruelly devouring jawes of the inhumane Canibals of Florida. Faithfully related by one of the persons concerned therein, Jonathan Dickenson
• Ingles, John, The Story of Mary Draper Ingles and Son Thomas Ingles
• Jewitt, John Rodgers (1896). The adventures of John Jewitt : only survivor of the crew of the ship, Boston, during a captivity of nearly three years among the Indians of Nootka Sound in Vancouver Island. Clement Wilson. Available online through the Washington State Library's Classics in Washington History collection
• Bleecker, Ann Eliza, The History of Maria Kittle
• The Remarkable Adventures of Jackson Johonnet, of Massachusetts (Boston, 1793)

[edit] Modern revisitations

In 1956 John Ford directed The Searchers, a fictional captivity narrative on film starring John Wayne. This film was influential because of its multiple psychological layers, as well as John Wayne going against his standard "hero in the white hat" typecast.

Cello-rock band Rasputina parodied captivity narratives in their song "My Captivity by Savages" from their 2004 album Frustration Plantation.

[edit] References

• A history of abduction Contemporary narratives of abduction, Madrid11.net
• White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives - accessed January 6, 2006
• Women Captives and Indian Captivity Narratives - accessed January 6, 2006
• Community and Conflict: Captivity Narratives and Cross-Border Contact in the Seventeenth Century - accessed January 6, 2006
• Strong, Pauline Turner (2002) “Transforming Outsiders: Captivity, Adoption, and Slavery Reconsidered.” A Companion to American Indian History, pp. 339-356. Ed. Philip J. Deloria and Neal Salisbury. Malden, MA and Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell Publishers.
• Turner, Frederick. Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness Rutgers University, 1992.